Before You Wake
by androidilenya
Summary: This was not love, it was battle of a different sort, two wolves circling each other and searching for a weakness. Curufin never made the mistake of thinking of it as anything else. Curufin/Finrod.


Curufin had always been an early riser — up while Telperion's light still peeked silver and silent from between the cracks in the shutters, and, later, before the sky to the east had more than the faintest streaks of light blue and rose. He liked to be up, doing something, even if it were as unproductive as straightening his already perfectly-organized forge for the ninth hundredth time.

If it bothered his wife to wake and find his side of the bed cold, sheets straightened and tucked in (for it irked him to leave anything in disarray), she never spoke of it. He supposed she understood that he saw no point in spending unnecessary time there. Or maybe it was just another one of those things they didn't talk about, things that built up and grew in importance and heaviness until they _couldn't_ talk about them, and by the time he thought he could have spoken to her for real, it was too late.

(He had loved her, in his way, and she him. If it hadn't seemed like it to others, that was none of their business — they had been happy, and their son had been happy, and when he had found her in a pool of red on pearl-strewn beaches, four bodies stiffening around her and a bare blade in her hand, he had mourned her and held her and cursed himself for being too late — and then stood up, continued on, and never spoken of her again. It was not in him to show unnecessary emotion, and she would have expected nothing else.)

There had been days when he had lingered, though, and watched the way her eyelids fluttered as she dreamed, dark hair spread across the pillows, the faintest sheen of sweat on her brow. He had always stolen away before she could wake, perhaps the slightest bit unwilling to be caught staring at her.

Years — decades — of waking alone had followed this. He had forgotten what it was like to wake to a warmth beside him rather than cold sheets, forgotten what the sun looked like on the closed eyelids of one who had recently shared something with him.

He told himself he did not need it — and in telling himself so, decided to let it fade from his memory.

And when this... when he had fled to Nargothrond, and he and Finrod had begun _this_, whatever this was, there had been no waking beside one another in the mornings — only shared breath in shadowed corners, frantic movements behind closed doors, shame and want painting Finrod's cheeks red, something darker than hunger and sharper than need curling inside Curufin, and it had been a secret, a mistake, and they had never spoken of it, and there seemed to be no need to (or so they told themselves, as the shadows grew and fate closed in around them — the story always ended the same way, and they were no longer children, but they could still pretend).

This was not _love_, it was battle of a different sort, two wolves circling each other and searching for a weakness. Curufin never made the mistake of thinking of it as anything else.

They fell asleep in Finrod's bed once, sweat sticking their hair to their foreheads, limbs tangled amid twisted sheets. It was an accident, of course. Finrod usually forced Curufin out, as though he were ashamed, as though sleeping beside another was reserved for love (something which even he never really pretended to have for Curufin). But it had been a long day, and Finrod had closed his eyes, murmuring, "Just for a moment, then," and had followed that with a soft snore. Curufin had seen no alternative but to remain there.

He woke first, as he always did, and instead of rising and slipping out, stayed.

Finrod had left marks on Curufin's skin the night before, red against white, that still burned even as the light of dawn crept in, and there was an ache like fulfillment still in him as he regarded his cousin, hair spread pale gold across the soft white sheets. He ran his gaze down the arch of Finrod's throat, so painfully exposed, a vein pulsing in the shadows beneath his chin, and down the plane of his chest, over scars from hunting accidents and battle.

(He had left marks on Finrod's throat, and drawn blood with his nails down that smooth skin about his collarbones, leaving his mark and thinking _mine_.)

When his eyes reached his cousin's face again, those dark blue eyes were open, regarding Curufin.

"Why do you do that?" Finrod asked, voice rough and drowsy.

"Do what?" Curufin replied, feigning ignorance.

"Watch me like that." He rolled over, propping himself up on one elbow and peering up at Curufin from beneath long golden lashes.

_Because you remind me of a home I lost, and you lost, and we all left behind_, he thought, but did not say. "Does it unsettle you, cousin?" He saw how Finrod at times avoided his gaze, the reflection in his eyes betraying what he saw in his cousin's face — Curufin bore more than a shadow of resemblance to his father, and certain ghosts still haunted every one of the exiles.

"Not in the slightest," Finrod replied dryly, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and reaching for the robe he had discarded the night before. Curufin watched the rippling movement of muscle under the skin of his back, and smiled.

_So fair and distant, cousin. Under that cold crown of yours is something beautiful and warm — and in the early morning, before you wake, it's mine._

Perhaps he should sleep here to wake beside Finrod more often. It was... something to consider.


End file.
